Surviving Dungeons

So, the Wiki states that the Story Mode for a dungeon should be relatively easy for any makeshift group to get through. Yesterday, my guildmates and I decided to run Ascalonian Catacombs. Obviously we got our stats scaled down, but in terms of gear we had a lv 80, lv 70, lv 50, and two lv 45s. And we got absolutely trounced by just about every set of mobs we encountered. Just regular trash mobs took every ounce of strength we had to defeat, and we ended up zerg-rushing most of the bosses, especially Vassar and Relena. I was literally completely naked by the end of it, and all of us were sufficiently frustrated. In total it took us close to two hours.

It wasn't like we were the most disorganised group on the planet, either. We spent a little bit of time working out strategies and picking skills, although less than we could have done. Still, we were hardly a "pick-up group."

So what is the secret we're missing? Why was it so damn difficult? If that's the wiki's idea of "easy" then I dread to imagine what the Explorable Mode has in store. And even more I dread the higher-level dungeons.

The few times I've run it with friends or guildies, there's always at least one person who has trouble with it. So these are a few things they should have done (I can't specifically speak for your group):

- Dodge often and watch your targets
- Call targets every fight
- Bring Condition removal (it's amazing how many people don't do this)
- Keep a ranged weapon available
- If you're low on health, swap to ranged and hide behind terrain
- Have at least one defensive stat built in your armor
- Keep your armor repaired

That last one should be an obvious one, but for some reason people complain that all their armor is broken. Waypoints are free, and there's a repair station near the start of the dungeon. Unless you have a Repair Canister and want to get the most out of it, you should repair as soon as your armor is broken*. Otherwise you will be downed instantly and contribute nothing.

If you're having trouble with a specific boss fight, you can Google strategies. For instance: dodge and focus Relena and bring condition removal for Vassar.

as a non-elite skillz and non-elite gear player, i can tell you i've done the first 4 dungeons and they are all hard. we gear up to be in for at least 2 hours. we find them hilarious and challenging and super enjoy getting our butts handed to us. we get it done... but it ain't pretty. nor does it get any easier... there are a lot of people here on guru who will tell you they can clear a dungeon in 15 min. that's nice for them. for normal players, dungeons are meant to be HARD and ARE hard.

my only advice is that i've found dungeons punish "one weaponset/one attack style" players. the bosses are arranged to demonstrate the need for flexibility. if people are going in without a full compliment of weapons, they need to fix that. if people are going in without money for repairs, then fix that too. also, never stand still. never. ever. and that means those long ele spells need to be watched.

Dungeon difficulty is achieved with a simple rule - players need to do a specific thing, or they lose.
You need to figure out what the trick is, do that, and everything becomes a piece of cake. This shit is poorly designed and if you don't exploit it - it becomes a massive pain.

I remember it being a bit difficult at first too. Its a matter of having a group that knows the instance well enough that they know what to expect, what to avoid, what to do about certain bosses, etc. That comes with experience and having a good attitude about dying quite a bit in the meantime.

Your gear doesn't mean a whole lot, because all of your attributes are set to level 30 values. Your armor and attack values are also adjusted.

on a serious note, dedicated roles, although GW2 lets anyone play any role, it didn't get rid of the holy trinity of tank, dps, and heal

you still have to have a dedicated "tank" one who can control mobs well and is durable (NOT necessarily decked out with toughness/vitality, just a person who can mitigate damage), dedicated DPS, self explanatory, and dedicated support, support comes in a lot of different forms: combo fields, heals, boons, conditions (weakness specifically)

more experienced players will find that they are able to play all of these roles at once depending on their class, but until you reach that point, you'll have to stick to dedicated roles

In some cases, explorable paths are indeed easier than the storymode for that dungeon. A team of any composition would technically be able to run a storymode or explorable path but it boils down to experience. Naturally most people only run storymode once on each toon, but may run the explorable mode multiple times for the tokens.

The thing about explorable mode is that they can be complete disasters or a complete walkover depending on the team's level of experience. My first Arah run could have ended in tears if we were the emotional sort...a completely unknowing team spending near 2 hours and still not completing a path. Individually, we were average players, not bad, but we didn't know any tips and tricks.

But if even one person in the group is experienced, with another 4 average players who are prepared to listen and follow those tips and tricks, then you get a pretty smooth run. This is probably what people mean when they say that a particular run shouldn't take longer than X minutes, and if you did then you're doing something wrong.

To be correct, it's not that you're doing something wrong, it's just that you have yet to get tips and guidance from someone who has run the dungeon multiple times. There are times where the group can buff up and just run past dangerous mobs rather than fight them, and that saves a lot of time and angst obviously. It's not necessarily to do with being poor at the basics such as learning to dodge, forecast 1-shot attacks etc. Dungeons are in most cases harder than open world PVE content. First experience is usually quite a wake-up call.

You can do AC story with 5 30's quickly if they got decent gear. Some classes are also complete arse in low level situations, they just doesnt become good until they reach the 20 point trait lines. Other classes can be very, very powerfull because they are so low (precision Warrior comes to mind).

But it sounds more like the OP had trouble understanding the mechanics of AC bosses. Zerg rushing the twins? Haha, good luck with that! So much fail...That battle is all about separating them and player endurance. Its incredibly simple once you understand that. You dont even have to use the rocks to split them up - weapon knockback skills works as well.

You dont even have to use the rocks to split them up - weapon knockback skills works as well.

Speaking of rocks, I've seen a group take turns to throw rocks at King Adelbern and literally cc'ed him into the ground. The fight was not only easy, it was downright hilarious, everyone must have been laughing aloud behind their screens.

Exp Dungeons seem easier- or maybe it is because we just run them so much. We can do paths 1, 2, and 3 of AC Exp in about 30 minutes total. We can do path 1 of CoF in 8 minutes and path 2 in 12. Path 3 takes to long to be lucrative for gold so we don't run it or the other dungeons as often.

An above poster was correct- a lot of it is knowing exactly what each encounter is going to be and preping for it. To get to that level you might need someone to show you the ropes.

explorable modes on all except arah have at least 1 path that is easier than story. the wiki lied to you.

story mode usually takes much longer and is relatively more difficult than most explorable paths.

really? I feel the story modes are incredibly easy.
the first times I ran ac explorable though It was the same scenario. 90 mins, maybe 2 hours and a lot of times we didn't finish. After we learned what to avoid, tricks to make parts easy, etc it takes us maybe 20-30 minutes a run now. Save your dodges for the important times, use a lot of ranged attacks and kite kite kite.

That last one should be an obvious one, but for some reason people complain that all their armor is broken. Waypoints are free, and there's a repair station near the start of the dungeon. Unless you have a Repair Canister and want to get the most out of it, you should repair as soon as your armor is damaged. Otherwise you will be downed instantly and contribute nothing.
...

That is extremely cost inefficient.
Keep in mind that damaged and broken gear cost the same to repair and damaged gear have no penalties attached.

There is no reason whatsoever to do any repairs before your first piece breaks.

If you have back up gear, you could save even more by making sure only broken gear is repaired.

'Easiest' strategy is to level up. All players should have a lvl 80 character with at least rare quality gear. It helps a lot, even when downscaled, to the point that some of the dungeons become laughably easy.

AC Story used to be pretty hard. However, since release it has been made significantly easier. I did it on a Level 31 Alt a week or so ago and now it is as easy as the Ghosteater. There is a lot of good, basic advice here (especially dodge, stay out of red circles and focus targets) but for AC specifically it is all about the boulders. Use them constantly, on everyone, and the whole place because both hilarious and easy (as somebody already mentioned.)

Dungeons require a bit of adjustment in mindset and you need to learn how to do them if you've never done their equivalents in other games but with a couple of exceptions as long as you prepare and communicate you shouldn't have too many difficulties once you get your head around each fight.